Ana Isabel Martins

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a conceptual model for the evaluation of environmental factors

Abstract The concept of Design for All emphasizes the impact of the surrounding environment in the individuals functionality. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health brought the concepts of functionality and disability into a comprehensive whole of multiple dimensions of human functioning, such as biological, psychological, social and environmental. In order to contribute to a greater overall functionality of the individual, the use of software and complex systems can be decisive to assist the people with special needs in all areas of life. The paradigm introduced with ICF is inclusive and universal, so it favors not only the old people, but all others, whether they have a limitation or not. The characteristics of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) are appropriate to fulfill elderly needs. However, the current state of development is still mostly oriented to a technological perspective, where the individuals functionality has not been fully addressed. Under the Living Usability Lab project we have defined a methodology and created some evaluation tools for assessment of AAL services according to a Living Lab perspective, based on the ICF. In this paper we intend to describe the base fundamentals of this proposal, as well as present some results concerning a practical implementation of this methodology.

Comparing the content of instruments assessing environmental factors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

PURPOSE To describe and compare the content of instruments that assess environmental factors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). METHODS A systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL and PEDro databases was conducted using a pre-determined search strategy. The identified instruments were screened independently by two investigators, and meaningful concepts were linked to the most precise ICF category according to published linking rules. RESULTS Six instruments were included, containing 526 meaningful concepts. Instruments had between 20% and 98% of items linked to categories in Chapter 1. The highest percentage of items from one instrument linked to categories in Chapters 2-5 varied between 9% and 50%. The presence or absence of environmental factors in a specific context is assessed in 3 instruments, while the other 3 assess the intensity of the impact of environmental factors. DISCUSSION Instruments differ in their content, type of assessment, and have several items linked to the same ICF category. Most instruments primarily assess products and technology (Chapter 1), highlighting the need to deepen the discussion on the theory that supports the measurement of environmental factors. This discussion should be thorough and lead to the development of methodologies and new tools that capture the underlying concepts of the ICF. :

European Portuguese Validation of the System Usability Scale (SUS)

Abstract The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a widely used self-administered instrument for the evaluation of usability of a wide range of products and user interfaces. The principal value of the SUS is that it provides a single reference score for participants’ view of the usability of a product or service. This paper presents the translation, cultural adaptation and a contribution to the validation of the European Portuguese version of SUS. The conducted work comprised two phases, the scale translation, and the scale validation. The first phase resulted in a European Portuguese version equivalent to the original in terms of semantic and content. The second phase involved the assessment of the validity and reliability of the scale. The instrument has construct validity as it presents a high and significant correlation with other two usability metrics, the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) (r = 0.70) and a general usability question (r = 0.48). The reliability results show less than satisfactory ICC values (ICC = 0.36), however the percentage of agreement is satisfactory (76.67%). Further studies are needed to investigate the reliability of the Portuguese version.

ICF Inspired Personas to Improve Development for Usability and Accessibility in Ambient Assisted Living

Abstract Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is an important research and development area. The acceptance of the AAL paradigm is closely related to the quality of the available systems and services, namely in terms of the user interaction. This means that usability and accessibility are crucial issues. The paper presents how the concepts of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) can be used to optimize the role of personas and scenarios in the development and evaluation of AAL systems and services, especially in aspects related with human functioning and health conditions.

Trip 4 All: A Gamified App to Provide a New Way to Elderly People to Travel

Abstract Older adults have much to gain from bringing technology into their daily lives. The extent to which this is possible strongly depends on careful design and accessible, easy to use products, developed using an elderly centered methodology. The senior tourism is a market in expansion and the old travelers need new and innovative technologies to help and support their trips. These technologies should contribute to a fun and safe experience, while promoting feelings of pleasure and self realization. In this paper we follow this design approach and put it to the test in developing the “Trip 4 All”(T4A), an application that works as a gamified virtual assistant to the elderly during a walking tourist visit. The gamified interaction with the visited environment intend to improve motivation to accomplish the visit and make the content absorption more fun and easier. The T4A works on georeferenced maps where the users’ geoposition is a trigger to launch storytelling content and/or challenges based on the aspects of the visited site as such: geographical, art, religious, historic, cultural and human. The success in the challenges give the user prizes, new resources and abilities to try more complex challenges that brings more valuable prizes and so on. Furthermore, the proposed application intend to work as a companion that provides self confidence, support and social integration to elderly tourists.

Evaluation of Complex Distributed Multimodal Applications: Evaluating a TeleRehabilitation System When It Really Matters

The evaluation of applications or systems within dynamic environments is complex. The existence of multiple hardware and software items which share the same space can provoke concurrency issues and result in erratic interactions. A sudden change within the environment can result is dramatic changes both to the user and application itself which can pass unnoticed in traditional evaluation methodologies. To verify if a component is compatible with a given environment is of paramount importance for areas like pervasive computing, ambient intelligence or ambient assisted living (AAL). In this paper, a semi-automatic platform for evaluation is presented and integrated with a TeleRehabilitation system in an AAL scenario to enhance evaluation. Preliminary results show the advantages of the platform in comparison with typical observation solutions mainly in terms of achieved data and overall ease of use.

Definition and Validation of the ICF – Usability Scale☆

Abstract Usability assessment is an important issue of the development of products and services based on information technologies. Questionnaires and scales are valuable instruments to collect large amounts of subjective data from users and their application is a reliable technique to assess usability. Furthermore, when considering products and services for older adults, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) might be used as a conceptual model for usability assessment. This paper presents the development and validation of the ICF-Usability Scale (ICF-US), an instrument supported by concepts and terminologies related to ICF and that is part of a comprehensive framework for the design, development and evaluation of ambient assisted living products and services for older adults. The methodology that has been followed in the study reported by this paper comprises two phases: the development and the validation phases. The last phase consisted in an observational study performed in a nursing home involving 32 adults and its results suggest acceptable reliability and validity values for the ICF-US.

Design and Development of Multimodal Applications: A Vision on Key Issues and Methods

Multimodal user interfaces provide users with different ways of interacting with applications. This has advantages both in providing interaction solutions with additional robustness in environments where a single modality might result in ambiguous input or output (e.g., speech in noisy environments), and for users with some kind of limitation (e.g., hearing difficulties resulting from ageing) by yielding alternative and more natural ways of interacting. The design and development of applications supporting multimodal interaction involves numerous challenges, particularly if the goals include the development of multimodal applications for a wide variety of scenarios, designing complex interaction and, at the same time, proposing and evolving interaction modalities. These require the choice of an architecture, development and evaluation methodologies and the adoption of principles that foster constant improvements at the interaction modalities level without disrupting existing applications. Based on previous and ongoing work, by our team, we present our approach to the design, development and evaluation of multimodal applications covering several devices and application scenarios.

European Portuguese validation of the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ)

The Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) is a 19-item instrument developed to assess the user satisfaction with system usability. The PSSUQ is widely used and robust in psychometric terms. This paper presents the process of translation, cultural adaptation and contribution to validation of the European Portuguese version of PSSUQ. The study is divided in two phases, the questionnaire translation and adaptation and the questionnaire validation. The questionnaire translation resulted in a Portuguese European version of PSSUQ equivalent to the original in terms of semantic and content. The second phase consisted of the validity and reliability assessment. The PSSUQ has excelent internal consistency (α = 0.80), as well as, satisfactory inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.67). The PSSUQ presents construct validity, with a high and significant correlation with an overall usability evaluation question (r=0.84, p<;0.05). The PSSUQ presents discriminative validity, distinguishing applications with distinct quality.

Towards a Proposal of an Application to Promote Volunteering through Television to Help Older Adults.

This article seeks to present a proposal of a project that aims to develop a television (TV) application that allows older adults to ask for support from a group of volunteers in specific tasks, using voice to carry out some tasks. To this end, a review was made to identify projects that have been addressing TV and voice interfaces in the context of systems and services directed to older adults. The review also focused on initiatives that use digital technologies to support volunteering targeting older adults. In addition, a questionnaire was applied to a group of people considered to be among the groups of stakeholders of the abovementioned application. The results of the review show that, even with several improvements in the last years in voice interaction area, it is not yet generally considered in TV applications and there seem to be few applications that are focused on foster volunteering targeting older adults. Furthermore, the data obtained by the questionnaire reveal the existence of a set of factors that do not allow a generalized acceptance of the use of a TV application to ask for help from a group of volunteers, despite being recognized by diverse groups of stakeholders that this type of applications is important.